Blackhouse Retreat Centre Build

The Blackhouse Retreat Centre Build - Crowdfund

The Project:

Heal the Mother is proud to be helping this community project in Scotland, as we continue to help co create conscious and spiritual spaces for healing and education in the new Earth...

Sara Best the custodian of the land at the Blackhouse, on the Southern Upland Way in the Wild Heart of the Scottish Borders, is looking for support to turn her place into a wellness retreat. We need your help to fund the renovation of the outbuildings to create sacred spaces for ceremony and practices for promotion of wholeness and wellbeing. 

We want to build a sanctuary for the spiritual community of Scotland and the rest of the UK. A retreat centre for the local community of the Borders and for people to travel to, from the major cities and further a field to experience the wilds of the mountains; a centre for healing and education. Whether you travel here for a retreat or if you use the space to hold your own practice it will be a very special venue for comminity to gather and co-create the New Earth.

We want to create a space where as a community you can attend or run workshops, events and retreats that will benefit individuals on their own journey of healing and self-discovery, and beyond for the welfare of Mother Earth and the expansion of the collective consciousness of the planet.

This will be a centre for wellness, spirituality and, for creativity and the arts - You can stay off grid eating the home grown permacuture vegatables for as long as you like emmersed in the breath taking natural beauty off the hills of the Borders.

We need your help to fund and co-create this space, so you can practice your wellbeing, with Yoga, dance, meditation, breathwork, support groups and medicine, to explore and expand our spiritual and nature connection. As we learn about the land and permaculture and, also hold ceremonies and rituals to once again connect us with ourselves, each other and the Earth. This will be a space we can use to immerse ourselves in a once lost connection with the wilderness of nature and the Oneness of reality.

This land is very special and holds a magickal energy that is truly medicine for the busy world - with your help we can co-create something really amazing for the community. 

So lets all get behind this project and build something we can all benefit from, somewhere to come to find sanctuary off grid and out in nature - to rest, heal, learn and grow as we build a community of like minded people to build this community space. The planet needs more places like this and together we can change the world for the better... We are ONE and we need your support!

History of the land:

The Blackhouse, has long since been the home of wild at heart creatives, and it is here that we are creating our Life Centre for Peace! At this stunning location, made remote by hills, we can offer you a place to slow down and immerse yourself in nature, to come and live off grid and low tech for a while, to experience a simpler and more sustainable way of life, leaving the fast pace of the modern world to align more closely with the rhythms of nature. Whether alone, with friends or family, come and experience a lighter way of being. Cooking by an open fire, enjoying a star lit night, or having a bath in the woods! We can support you in your stay with yoga, dance and meditation, therapies, and readings or maybe you just want to be alone. 

Our historic and magical part of the Scottish Borders is surrounded by areas of outstanding beauty, such as St Marys Loch, and the amazing natural pools at Gameshope, the walks around Grey Mares Tale or the café, house and garden of Traquair estate. 

Sara, tells her story... 

I am lucky enough to be a custodian of a beautiful piece of off grid land, a stone farm house and an old stone barn. The land and buildings have history; home to James Hogg, the Etrrick Shepherd, a poet, writer and contemporary of Walter Scott and before that the Douglas clan, an infamous Border's family; and many generations before that people have been drawn by the meeting of waters, the protective hills and the ferility of land this affords.

It is here, on this beautiful piece of off grid wilderness that we are creating a haven of `Peace and Wellbeing', of Sustainability and Permaculture, a retreat from the business of the 21st Century; a place to just be and to become deeply immersed in nature, so you can heal supported by the land and all she offers. Here, we welcome you to the Wild Heart of the Scottish Borders; remote, tucked away in the hills and yet just 1hr and 15 mins from the centre of Edinburgh.

I was in my early childhood when I began to understand that I needed to be part of different movement, an alternative way of living life; not a slave to a system that I knew was ultimately not supporting many, and was destroying our beautiful Gaia, our ultimate Mother, the earth. I saw all the injustices and needed to create a life off the grid, so I could begin to form the intentional communities that would create change!

I want to support people to create a New Earth together!

As a Dancer, Yoga teacher and Therapist, I know it is within Somatic practices we begin to realign, to integrate, to make whole and it is here our bodies become more able to let go of the dis-ease within our bodies, to soften, to receive the healing that is Love and Life. We begin to learn to Yield, to Love and Life rises to help and support us.

‘Life is the Dancer and we are the Dance’ Eckhart Tolle.

There is a better way, A New Earth that we all can be part of NOW!

I wish for all people to step into enjoying free and creative expression and I know that it is at nature’s wild places that we find this retreat from the Modern World, places that enables us to slow down long enough to surrender into being Present.

Let us let go and allow Life to express itself freely.  Let us become a channel for peace and rest here a while. It is here we can learn what the earth teaches us. Let us awaken this understanding in as many people as possible. Nature Heals - Our Mother is the ultimate nurturer and as such we must now create new, more sustainable ways to support her! This is Our Work Now!

So, whether you choose to practice at the Blackhouse Retreat Centre, you will find healing from the land... or you can simply potter around your yurt home or go out to explore; we will aim to have everything you need to make your stay magickal and unforgettable.

Click here to check out the Blackhouse on Facebook

Nature knows and we trust her wisdom - At the Blackhouse you can emmerse yourself in Mother Earths medicine.

We aim to create:

• A safe place to experience a simpler, more sustainable, and conscious way of life. A sanctuary to retreat from our busy lives, to nurture a new way of living and being...
• Creating spaces for intentional community through in person gatherings full of sacred times: ceremony and practice, work, rest and play; fire side songs, yoga, dance and meditation.
• An accessible centre of wellbeing to support people from all walks of life in our stressful world.
• A place for education with a deep immersion into our off-grid life here in the hills! From vegan plant-based cookery to permaculture, from composting loo systems to solar panels; we can help you in your journey toward self-sufficiency! 

So come and join us in any way you can to help co-create this magickal retreat centre; We are looking for your help with funding and also community support with time, energy, solutions and resources to build the spaces needed for community to gather, collaborate, share, heal and learn as one for the benefit of all.

What we require:

Barn renovations: Studio and ceremony space.

Roof including stone work, materials and labour = £25k

Studio floor and heating  =  £5k

Mats, blocks and blankets  =  £500

Compost Loo/ shower block  = £1k

Windows, doors and fitting  = £10k

Stud walls and insulation   = £5k

Total = £46.5k

*Please donate what you can and share within your network and community. We are very grateful for your support in any way you can help.

Thank you...

We welcome your support and we look forward to welcoming you soon to the Blackhouse Retreat Centre in the Wilds of the Borders of Scotland. 

Much love and many blessings, the team at Heal the Mother and Sara. x